ABSTRACT
Genoese presence in Seville dates back to the Almohad period starting in 1160, though it increased exponentially after Ferdinand III’s reconquest of the city in 1248, when a large number of Ligurian citizens arrived in Castile to assist in this royal design. The Genoese were active in the field of finance, where the control exercised by Ligurian bankers in the Castilian kingdoms was so efficient that they were soon chosen by the pontifical curia to collect the money owed them in these lands. Public use of elements of artistic culture and patronage did justice to the image of one of the most influential men in all of southern Spain. Seville-based Spanish citizens bought Genoese paintings. The prolonged influx of Genoese citizens into the Kingdom of Seville brought about a process of reception of Italian paintings similar to the one that had taken place with the import of stone materials for residences and altarpieces and sculptures for chapels.
